When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the difference.
Then WordPress came along and changed everything. Now, it’s getting increasingly harder to tell if the website is running on a “blogging” CMS tool like the WordPress publishing platform, or if it’s been developed using web-building software. Not so much in terms of what the sites are being used for, but in terms of website design and also being able to tell what kind of web application is actually powering the site.
(It’s Getting Harder To Tell Websites Built With Web Development Tools Vs ‘Blogging’ Software!)
For many website owners, understanding the difference between a Content Management System tool like WordPress and other website-building software is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, in terms of the things that matter to most website owners, such as web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain the website up-to-date, managing web content, etc.
Think about this …
Which of the options below would you choose?
A) An eye-catching, professional-looking website that is actually expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking website, but at a cost that turns out to be significantly less than the cost of getting option ”A” above built.
If you chose option ”B” above, then you need to know more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create an expensive-looking website that could turn out to be much less expensive to build than websites built using web-building software … and how to tell the two apart!
WordPress is the world’s most used online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a flexible and powerful CMS application suitable for small, medium and even large businesses.
Whether your reason for having a website or blog is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a newbie with no technical knowledge to use and manage, and offers many helpful features that make your web presence highly effective in terms of getting your content published and indexed by search engines, promoting visitor engagement, generating business leads and sales, scalability, etc.
With almost one in every five websites around the world currently being powered by WordPress, chances are that if you already own a website, yours is also a WordPress site.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are thinking of getting one built, then wouldn’t it be great to be able to show your web developer an existing site with the design and layout that you like, know that it was built with WordPress and that you can, therefore, get a similar site built to a smaller budget if required?
Tell-Tale Signs It’s A WordPress Web Site And WP-Checking Tools
Do you need to know if your website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come here because you’ve heard about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on WordPress, or some other content management system.
Also, have you ever looked at a competitor’s website and wondered what they’re doing to try and get better results online?
Knowing if your competitor’s site is built with WordPress can tell you a few things about their strategies and methods, such as what themes or plugins they are using.
Here are a number of ways to tell if a web site has been built using WordPress:
View Your Source Code
If you know how to check the source code of a web page (e.g. Firefox Menu > Web Developer > Page Source if using Firefox, or Google Menu > More Tools > View Source if using Google Chrome), you can look for an obvious tell-tale footprint …
(Viewing page source code in the Firefox browser)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you visit a website that you like, and you’re wondering if the site is built on WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
In the source code, search for “wp-content” either by visually scanning the code …
Or use the browser’s “Find” function …
(Using the Firefox web browser ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site runs on WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not locate “wp-content” in the page source code, it doesn’t mean that this is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if a site runs on WordPress, as we will soon see.
As the point of this article is to try and help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easy methods you can use to check if your web site is powered by WordPress other than scanning the source code.
Just Ask Your Website Developer
While this may seem like the obvious thing to do, many website development agencies, for whatever reason, will build clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you have an existing website and you’re not sure what application is driving it, just ask your developer or whoever built your website if your website runs on WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t get in touch with your website developer, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while browsing online and you really would like to know if it was built using WordPress?
Check Below Footer
If the site uses a WP theme where the theme templates have not been customized, you can often find a “Proudly powered by WordPress” notice shown below the footer section of the site …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress – site footer section)
If the methods above haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Online Tools That Can Tell You If A Website Is Built With WordPress
Here are a couple of sites that can tell you if the website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP
(IsItWP.com)
Is It WP is a free online tool that lets you check if a site was built with WordPress or not.
Using this tool is super easy. Just type in or paste in the address of the site into the URL field and click the button.
It will go and search through the URL pages and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, it will even tell you which version of WordPress the site is currently using …
If the web site is not a WP-powered website, you will get a message similar to the one below …
To visit this site, go here:
Advanced WP Theme Checker by Satori
(WordPress Theme Detector)
WordPress Theme Detector by Satori Studio is a free tool that can help determine whether or not a website uses WordPress as its CMS engine; it will also tell you which theme the site is using and provide a link to the theme’s official page.
To use this tool, paste the URL of a web page (it doesn’t have to be the home page) into the ‘Enter website URL’ field and click on the ‘What WordPress theme is that?’ button …
(Enter website URL and click the button)
The Theme Detector will automatically scan the website and output its theme information …
(WordPress Theme Detector displays theme results)
If a website is built with WordPress but the theme is too customized to contain any traces of its origins, the Detector will still let you know it’s a WP site by outputting a message on the right.
(Modified WordPress theme message)
If the website is not using WordPress at all, the tool will also let you know …
(This website is not WordPress)
You can try the Detector yourself by visiting this link:
Wappalyzer – Browser Extension (Firefox / Chrome)
(Wappalyzer – Extension For Firefox & Chrome Browser)
If you browse the net using either Firefox or Chrome and want to be able to see if the sites that you are visiting are WP-driven, then Wappalyzer is a useful extension to add to your browser.
Wappalyzer tells you what type of software is installed on the sites you are visiting.
According to their website …
“Wappalyzer is a browser extension that uncovers the technologies used on websites. It detects content management systems, eCommerce platforms, web servers, JavaScript frameworks, analytics tools and many more.”
It’s also an easy to install and easy to use web browser add-on.
After installing Wappalyzer, icons will appear in your web browser menu allowing you to see which technologies are installed on the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon displays on your browser menu (as shown in the screenshot above), then the site uses WordPress.
(This site is built using WordPress!)
Go here to visit the Wappalyzer web browser add-on site:
SpyBar
(SpyBar – Browser Addon For WordPress)
SpyBar is a browser addon that lets you ‘reverse engineer’ any WordPress site you visit and see which WordPress plugins and themes are being used, right inside your web browser …
(SpyBar – Discover WordPress Plugins And Themes Used By Your Competitors)
SpyBar can be installed as a browser extension on Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox and is compatible with PC and Mac.
To download or learn more about SpyBar, go here:
Plugin Sniper
(Plugin Sniper – Find out what plugins a WordPress site is using)
Plugin Sniper lets you find out what plugins a WordPress site is using. This is a useful tool if you want to know what WordPress plugins are being used by your competitors.
Plugin Sniper is also a useful tool for researching what kinds of plugins businesses in certain niches are using …
(Search WordPress sites by categories and location)
To download or learn more about Plugin Sniper, go here:
We hope you have found this tutorial useful.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now